Sunday 9 March 2014

Two thin young men in snapbacks and bum fluff are eating eggs...



Two thin young men in baseball caps and bum fluff are eating eggs in the cafĂ© on Westbourne Road, a copy of The Sun open on the table in front of them. “He paid £106,000 to look like that!” says the one in the white hat, poking his yolky knife at a picture of a semi-naked man with very pronounced abdominal muscles. “Why?” says the man in the blue hat. “Because he’s a fucking knob.”

At the newsagent's on the other side of the road, a young woman in a polka-dot onesie, heavy make-up, drawn-on eyebrows and a big ‘up do’ is waiting outside in the drizzle with two Staffordshire bull terriers. A large truck passes, blowing over the steel Huddersfield Examiner sandwich board with a crash and the dogs yelp in surprise.

Later, out in the sticks, a pair of frogs are in amplexus on the steps of the house that once featured on TV’s Grand Designs and a sparrowhawk kills a woodpigeon on Mr and Mrs Mitchell’s driveway. As I cross the road by the Conservative Club, my hat blows off and a woman under an umbrella walks into me as I bend down to retrieve it.

On the estate, the man who always wears the same baggy tracksuit bottoms and unusual cap-sleeved t-shirt says he’s looking forward to some nicer weather because it puts people in a better mood. Further down, in the car park by the flats, the old man in the tweed suit shouts “We’re getting posh, aren’t we?” to the Rastafarian man who is fitting some new wheel trims to his Vauxhall Astra.

Back in town, the drunk man in the grey suit is emptying his catheter bag into the storm drain by the bedroom furniture shop.