Small cringe

So much to mention recently, but circumstances have kept me away from the computer, have in fact kept me from doing anything other than working like a madman (apart from a brief pastoral interlude about which I must of necessity stay sctum except for this: never order drinks in the South). So much, I should offer my heartfelt and delirious congratualtions to people who know who and why they are offered. So, so pleased. I should dissect the letters page of this weeks Champion (the highlight of which is a cry of outrage against overweight NHS staff, featuring the immortal line "it's disgusting that so many of these porkers are allowed to work in our hospitals" - bravo!). I could expound upon my new theory that the Police are simply coming up with new initiatives to deliberately take the piss out of the Mail ("Free heroin for addicts!" "It's OK to fuck fourteen year old girls!" "Asylum seekers given licence to kill and a free twee cottage in darkest Bucks!" [NB last may not actually be true]) because they feel like it, I suppose I could even rant a little about the catering industry (Christmas is nearly upon us again). I could, and indeed should, do all of these things. But in dipping ym toe back in the electronic waters I'll just give you a small anecdote to illustrate how preoccupied I've been of late.

As I was crossing the road a couple of days back I was in a world of my own, mulling over various things, when I was confronted by a face I vaguely recognised as a restaurant regular. She greeted me and I responded with the usual platitudes along the linesof "alright? how are you? how you doing?"

It wasn't until I was twenty yards down the road that it occured to me that she wasn't normally in a wheelchair, nor did she normally have one leg in plaster. My faux-cheery "alright?" might, under the circumstances, have seemed something like taking the piss.