Fear of the Known

I tell you this much, you'll never see a bus inspector on the13A. He'd be far too likely to catch someone smoking, like the crowd behind me as I write. The whole upstairs of the bus is crowded up the front with spare seats between them and us ('them and us', don't you just love that!).

Anyhow on my way into town to meet Janet for a screening of 'Willy O'Reilly and the Coleen Bawn', a 1918 silent movie with live accompaniment.

After this week I couldn't leave without a pint or two in The Slipper. Some research money must have come in, as there was a small group of bigwigs and their group in drinking. I can see the attraction of the research circuit; they do their own thing without interference as long as the money comes in. Nice. Of course, the money has to keep coming.

The smokers have just gotten off. It's not the smoking of course, not for them. It's the finger to society, that they're offering. The thing is it's such a small finger and in place of so much lost. For those of you unaccostomed to the 13A bus route, there is a contingent of users who wouldn't have too many opportunities nor too much self-belief nor too much cop-on. They tend to fill the absence of belief with whatever substance is to hand, and nicotine is the mildest of those. (Of course, for me alcohol is the same answer on those frequent occasions when the belief is absent). Ironically I look at them and I look at the weary bigwigs and outside of the bellies, there is little difference. In a way. I am not so naiveas to ignore the obvious advantages one enjoys over the other. I suppose I just mean in the grand scheme of things we all die and even while we live, it ain't worth a hill of beans how big your wig is. Trite tripe for the weekend.