Tuesday17th April

Why, oh why, am I constantly being stopped in the street and asked for directions.  Is it because I am a certain age, is it because I am generally well-dressed, or is it because I look so polite the questioner, the stopper, knows I won’t shout, I won’t ignore them and most of all I won’t tell them to F%$k Off.  Really it happens almost every week; are there really that many ignorant people around or is this some well organized practical joke?  And there really is no excuse; have these people never heard of a SatNav, or those Apps you can buy for your phone to ensure you never get lost, or Googling the map before you set off, or even that old stop-gap of yesteryear an A to Z of London.  But no, rather than think about where they are going before they set out, they just assume that someone else will show them the way.

And would you believe it, I can hardly ever help them out.  I am either in a slightly unfamiliar part of London myself, or the streets they ask for are ones I have never heard of, and strongly suspect either do not actually exist, or are in a totally different part of the city from where the stopper has stopped me, the stoppee, for interrogation.  And they don’t take no for an answer, they persist in repeating Sycamore Avenue or Bledgate Street, with a pleading look on their face as if I had magical powers and could transport them to the street of their dreams with a wave of my magic wand.

And am I the only one with good eyesight in the world.  I do like to listen to my i-pod in the street, and like the girl in the nursery rhyme, have music wherever I go.  So how come the stopper never notices that I have my earphones in, and so when they, the stopper stop me, I have to not only stop walking, but scrabble for my player and put it on pause and remove my headphones before I can invariably disappoint this stupid stopper with my lack of knowledge of the more obscure by-ways of the capital.