Once upon a time, I used to haunt the streets of Soho, wallowing in the scents, the smells, the colours, the darkness.
On one such occasion I was walking through a square, in the centre of which was a park. The road was packed with cars, parked in front of the houses, and brightly lit apart from a grey zone where a skip stood.
As I approached this skip, a man in a suit leapt up into the air from its very innards, holding something or over in a Eureka! pose, before sinking back into the bowels of the skip. The man, I should add, was also wearing a top hat.
Of course, in London, anything can happen, and frequently does. The intial thought that this suited gent was in the extremes of poverty and was forced to take desperate measures was quickly swept aside as the man emerged yet again, this time holding a can of beans, and looking up at the sky in a pose of religious devotion, before lowering himself again into what looked like a mountain of cardboard.
An impromptu peformance, like those living statues that keep popping up all over the place. But with a limited audience. The odd person who might be passing through this deserted square in the early hours of a Sunday morning. Like who? Like me.
In retrospect, I should have applauded.
