Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Humiliation

I am an expert jay walker. I worked in the Strand for a number of years and in the City before that..
I could squeeze through the narrowest of quickly closing gaps, my spatial awareness bordering on the miraculous. I could have been a bull fighter of the most artistic kind but I didn’t like the idea of killing, or the idea of flying to Spain come to that.
Today in this hick town of Llandrindod I was humiliated in the most dreadful manner. The road is an ordinary two way road of moderate traffic density. I looked right – one car in the distance. I looked left – a stream of cars moving at less than 30 mph but an easy gap between the leading taxi and the next car. I walked into the centre of the road and waited for the taxi to pass me when I would quickly move in behind it cross the remaining six feet and the car behind the taxi would not even have to slow up.
Elementary jaywalking well within my city developed abilities. But the bastard taxi driver stopped and waved me across with his index finger like I was some old pensioner!
Still I suppose from a driver’s point of view it is an excellent stroke to pull and I was reminded of that book/film about Lifemanship written by Stephen somebody or other and starring Alister Sims, Terry Thomas and Ian Carmichael.

1 comment:

Neutron said...

That is a real bummer! Next thing you know cheeky young whipper-snappers will be offering you their seats on crowded busses!