Overheard. Mark Love
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yes, I suppose so. In a way. But it was really quite delightful. A truly unforgettable experience.
Two elderly women wait in a long and slow checkout queue in a supermarket.
A: Oooh, I don’t know. This is the worst bit of shopping, isn’t it?
B: It is, love. Not that there’s anybody waiting on me like.
A: Oh are you on your own too, love?
B: Aye, thirteen, nay, fourteen years now.
A: I’m a bit longer meself. You know, they say it gets better but it never does, does it?
B: No. You wait for it to get better but it doesn’t. There’s never nobody there when you get back, and when you’re at home you never hear that sound of t’key in t’door any more. Miss him every day.
A: Aye.
B: Aye.
A property PR person is talking to the MD of a building company and a female friend.
PR (to MD): You have to go away now. I need to spill some gossip to Jill.
MD: That’s not fair, I never get to hear gossip. I don’t get rude faxes, e-mails or anything. Go on, tell me.
PR: If you’re sure.
MD: Absolutely.
PR: Well, the other day the sales negotiator here was outside having a lunchtime fag when she glanced across the bird sanctuary and realised that there were two women having full-on sex in the reeds.
MD: Christ!
PR: Anyway, the sales negotiator is so shocked by this that she just has to tell someone. So she runs into the office and phones the site manager and tells him there are two birds having it off in the sanctuary. He says, ‘So what?’, then he realises she means two women, not two chaffinches. Now he’s interested. Anyway, in his rush to get down there and have a good old look he takes a corner too tightly and writes off his car—
MD: A brand-new Land Rover.
PR: That’s right!
MD: That would be a company car then?
PR: (sigh) You see! That’s why you never get to hear gossip!
A son is guiding his northern father around on his first trip to London.
FATHER: Tha’ know, son, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many Pakis in one place before.
SON: Dad! You can’t go around calling people Pakis.
FATHER: Well, what am I supposed to call ’em then?
SON: You don’t have to call them anything! This is London, there’s loads of people from all over, and you wouldn’t know most of them were foreign till they opened their mouths.
FATHER: That may be so, but you can spot Pakis, can’t you?
SON: Dad!
FATHER: I were just making an observation! It’s right multicultural, innit?
SON: The least you can do is say there’s lots of people from Pakistan or something.
FATHER: All right. All right.
A few minutes later, they’re in a queue for tickets at the tube station when the father nudges his son.
FATHER: There you go, son. I think that person from Pakistan is ready to serve you now.
In a supermarket checkout queue an elderly lady points to her purchase—an organically reared chicken.
ELDERLY LADY: Oh they’re lovely they are! Really succulent. Just enough for me and a red setter!
A sales counter in a department store. An older shop assistant with a Yorkshire accent serves a young woman.
ASSISTANT: ’ello, love! You shopping?
YOUNG WOMAN: Yeah. Got a party to go to. Thought I’d treat myself to a new outfit.
The assistant looks a little shocked and lifts up the young woman’s purchases.
ASSISTANT: Knickers and um ’andbag? By ’eck, love. I hope you’re wearing more than that!
A miffed office worker puts the phone down.
SARAH: Oooh! Northern men!
RACHEL: S’up, love, ’as he upset you?
SARAH: Oooh, no more than usual! I ’aven’t seen him for three weeks and I ’aven’t spoken to him for two, and I’m telling him how much I miss him and that I love him and do you know what he says?
RACHEL: Go on.
SARAH: He says ‘similar’. Five bloody years we’ve been together and he says ‘similar’. Men!
Dad is just serving up a not-terribly appealing lunch.
DAD: There you go! Amazing all this, isn’t it? I mean, imagine being able to freeze rice. Fantastic.
TOMMY: (poking the contents of his plate nervously) Dad, how did you cook this?
DAD: What, the rice? You just bung it in a pan of boiling water for fifteen minutes or so.
TOMMY: But Dad, doesn’t ordinary rice take 15 minutes to cook?
DAD: Oh I don’t know. Perhaps.
TOMMY: But, Dad, if you boil frozen rice for fifteen minutes doesn’t it turn into a gluey, sticky mass like this?
DAD: (peeved) Well I thought it was all right!
TOMMY: Dad, if you’re cooking the ordinary rice and frozen rice for the same amount of time, then what is the point of having frozen rice?
DAD: Well you can store it in the freezer, can’t you!
A group of old friends are taking stock at a wedding.
RYAN: I mean, this is beautiful and everything. It feels like these two, you know…You know what I mean? But look at us. Jesus. This finishes at twelve and where are we going then? Bed! BED! What happens? I mean, what happened to the kids who couldn’t get