2003-01-09 - 4:08 p.m.

I don�t go into Leic*ster Square as often as I should, partly because it�s a depressing orgy of frenzied consumerism (queues for �10 tickets to see the latest J-Lo cinematic excrement? Sign me right up!) but mostly because of the fear I might bump into one of the C*pital FM Radio DJs. Can you imagine anything less savoury than having to make smalltalk with Neil �Dr �Foxy� Foxx� Foxx? Call me old fashioned, but I�d rather try and lick the spinning propellers of a light passenger aircraft than trade banter with that asinine nomark.

The other thing that puts me off loitering are the gypsies, or at least those wretched old charlatan crones who think that accessorising with a bunch of �lucky� heather is tantamount to fifteen generations of Romany ancestry. They approach people, thrusting their scabby twigs into their hands, and then forcing them to pay some ludicrous amount for this �charm�, or else risk the wrath of the gypsy hex.

So I�m wandering down to the National Gallery shop to buy my Mum a birthday present and the sun is shining down on the treacherously icy pavements, and blindsiding me by coming out of the solar glare (an old fighter pilot trick, you see?), some malodorous coffin-dodging doxy is making a b-line for me, some pitiful strip of foliage thrusting forth, a determined look on her face.

As she physically tries to plant it somewhere on my person despite my having my hands in my pockets, I feel like saying, �Wow! You got me! My one weakness! I�m such a sucker for toothless wenches using physical coercion to palm off scabby brambles that will cost me the equivalent of a weeks pay! Oh, what, you�re going to CURSE me? Jeez. Let�s think about this for a second. OK, I�m 30 years old, I have no real job, no hair, I can�t get an editor in this city to return my calls, I have no girlfriend and I haven�t been laid in about eight years! Where exactly do you see us going if we wander down this whole hexing avenue? Maybe you could have my legs fall off at a socially embarrassing moment, but to be honest, I�d be glad of the novelty at this point. Or is it just that you�re a conniving fraud whose last throw of the moneymaking dice is the inspired genius that is crushing aphid-ridden sprigs into the hands of foreign tourists and relieving them of their small change, not because they�re scared of your supposed mystical hoodoo, but because they�d rather not have a urine-drenched harridan tailing them as they try to buy �25 tickets for the latest J-Lo cinematic excrement. Take a guess, Rosie Lee, or look it up in your crystal ball when you get back to your �caravan�, which we all know is actually a two-bedroom maisonette somewhere in Peckham.�

I didn�t say that, of course. I just bustled my way past. Because you never know with those gypsy curses.