More Teashop Life.

I thought at five foot nine inches I would be classed as a midget these days, but apparently I underestimated my Herculean stature. On approaching the teashop I saw a number of people going in and out of the doorway unimpeded. Imagine my surprise when I then cracked my head on the security shutter, which had been left slightly down from its normal open position. How had that happened? Had the rest of the world shrunk, or had I ingested an Alice in Wonderland growth pill?

I will never be able to work it out, because I'm now concussed. Most people would be happy because litigation would make them rich, but that's not my bag. 

Anyway, back to business. The table next to mine soon filled up with well spoken fashionista spanning three generations. As usual, it didn't take long for the bourgeois applomb to quickly unravel, leaving the animal within to take over. Food was served and this immediately precipitated a cacophony of coughs, tympani cutlery and a sucession of bestial honks. The whole tableau descended into something resembling a Formula One pitstop, unusually coupled with a scene of wolves stripping the carcase of a dead donkey.

One of the customers relinquished their Oxbridge tones to filter every comment through a mouthful of food. Images of the Elephant Man at a dentist's came to mind, as muffled statements emerged from a quagmire of cheese, bread and saliver. 

The youngest member of the group had reached that delightful age where she corrected her parents on every comment made and every other word chosen.

Four A*, no doubt. Fifty percent of her generation at a university, but the country 2.3 trillion pounds in debt and doctors still needing to be imported. Query.

Any road (as they used to say in Emmerdale Farm before the weekly murders, kidnapping and wife swapping began), I finished my cake and sat back. A man walked by whistling the hit parade from 1967, or thereabouts.

Lola. Needles and Pins. Help.