2003-06-04 - 7:53 p.m.

I�ve been at the new gaff now for about five months or so now - long enough to have unpacked at least a good quarter of my possessions and more importantly to have made a mental note of the interesting characters that enliven, signpost and sometimes physically block my walk to work. I say �work�. What I mean, of course, is �the nearest tube station� because it would be mean spirited to walk any further when they�ve so kind as to build the things.

As you probably didn�t care enough to remember, I�ve only moved ten minutes away from my old place, and I use the same tube station, but, and, oooh, can you bear the excitement, I approach the station from a different direction, and therefore routinely pass a whole different array of characters. In fact the only one I remember passing the old way was the kind of cute girl at the bus stop who I was working my way up to saying hello to after five years of passing her when I saw her engaged in what can only described as wanton tonguery with some nomark chancer. You know the type: hair, eyes. And so were quashed the almost literal raging flames of vague disinterest.

No such nascent non-romance on my work pilgrimage nowadays. For starters, I get to see the neighbourhood guy every day. You all have one. It�s the guy whose job it is just to hang around the neighbourhood. He spends a lot of time talking to the owners of the neighbourhood shops but not buying anything. He spends a lot of time hanging around the neighbourhood public transport depots, but never goes anywhere. Ours is pretty textbook � a kind of corpulent, gnomic rat man, given to hoarse muttering to himself and flagrant disregard for bodily hygiene or any kind of life vocation outside being seen around the neighbourhood. On football match days he wears his football top and hangs around. On Friday nights he wears a dinner jacket (?!) and bowtie, though to be fair, the bowtie IS simply printed onto the grubby white t-shirt that he favours. Still, it gives him a certain weekend air of sophistication which he seems to be pleased with. In any case, we pass each other with extreme indifference.

The other regular encounter are two frankly over-dressed Eastern European girls of indeterminate age. I think one of them might be different people, but one of them definitely isn�t. The scent of saliva-evaporating perfume pervades even the smog-heavy road that we live by, and my remedial observations lead me to believe they are unfortunate employees of the nearby, heavily-blinded massage and knocking shop emporium, where therapeutic physical therapy is no doubt on the cards, but not in the �oh, my lumbago feels so much better� kind of way. I�m probably wrong, of course. They�re probably probation officers or PhD students, but the banality of the walk demands a certain imaginative leap, and that was the easiest one. I should probably just keep my head down and listen to my music.